I'm Tired of Worrying About Things. Maybe You Are Too? (A Love Letter)
Let's just say no to worrying this summer
Undogmatic writing advice and inspiration from an unconventional romance author. If you’re in need of inspiration for your writing, read on. Upgrade to paid for classes and access to a friendly, vibrant writing community.
Hi lovies,
It hit me like a ton of words raining down on my head.
I’m tired of worrying about things.
I don’t want to worry about:
—What people think about me.
—A daily word count. I love my WIP, it’s going swimmingly. (For some reason, I’ve always wanted to use that word.) But I don’t want to hamstring myself by hewing to some arbitrary word count.
—Likes and comments on Insta and Notes.
—Posting the “right” thing on Insta and Notes.
—How to sell books the “right” way.
—How many steps I get.
—Following the advice of experts to the letter.
—Eating enough vegetables.
—Being enough, period.
Instead, I want to:
—Write with wild abandon
—Expect nothing, accept everything. (I believe this is a quote from some wise person, but alas, I know not who. Do you?)
—Post whatever in the hell I want on social media, or even, gasp, not at all.
—Learn how to sell books my way.
—Ignore the noise.
—Hope, pray trust that everything will be alright in the world.
—Look for glimmers.
—Know that it’s okay to experience joy, even while there’s so much wrong happening.
—Take my coffee outside while I write morning pages.
—Be not enough and wallow in it.
As I write this, it’s the first day of summer.1And so, let’s start a movement, shall we? I’m declaring this a summer for not worrying.
Instead, it’s a summer for:
—Taking Chip the pug for long walks in the early morning before it gets hot and hard for his little smooshed nose to breathe.
—IRL connections galore.
—Being outside as much as possible.
—Lying on the grass and looking for shapes in the clouds.
—Eating more ice cream.
—Picking berries and making freezer jam.
—Picnics.
—Corn on the cob. Lots and lots of corn on the cob, grilled, with butter and salt.
—Watermelon.
—Drinking G&Ts with the elderberry tonic I discovered in England and love so much.
—Remembering that, “Extravagant love always finds a way to multiple itself.” 2
Are you with me in this Summer of Not Worrying?
Let me know how you’re going to celebrate.
Love, light, and good writing,
Charlotte
NEW CLASS ALERT
There is one more week of the Bird by Bird class to come and paid subscribers are welcome to join at any time. All classes are recorded! Anyway, we end on June 27. (Hard to believe that is just two weeks away.)
And then on summer Fridays, I’m starting something new.
It’s my version of an AMA (Ask me Anything)/Open Office Hours.
We can talk about:
—How to get your butt in the chair to write regularly
—Brainstorm story ideas
—Craft questions, on character wound and misbelief, structure, setting, dialogue, anything.
—Process
—Publishing, trad and indie
—Writer’s block
—Anything related to writing!
I’ll also come prepared with topics of my own and a writing prompt or two, just in case nobody has anything to say. Although: fat chance of that. So far, in both the Artist’s Way and Bird by Bird classes, we’ve never lacked for conversation. And the group that gathers for these classes is turning into the loveliest writing community. The writers are friendly and welcoming and always have interesting things to contribute to the conversation, and many of them will attend this class.
Since July 4th inconveniently falls on a Friday this year, our first gathering will be July 11, and it will start at 11 AM Pacific. (Pretty sure that 11:11 thing is a good omen, right? All calls will be recorded.)
NEWS FLASH
Since this is an experiment, for our first outing, all subscribers, free or paid are welcome to join the first week. In the future I will be paywalling.
Price: all paid subscribers will have access, so for as little as $8 a month you can join in. Please do join us! If you’re already a paid subscriber, you’re set. If not, upgrade and you’ll be included.
Articles and Resources
Don’t break the fictive dream. This post gets a bit too precious-y literary, but if you scroll down, there’s a good rundown of how writers break the fictive dream.
Are you or your writing stuck in movie logic?
Getting back into relationship with your writing.
My post on how to get ideas:
Out of Ideas? When the World's a Shitstorm, it's Hard to Think Creatively
This week, I’m doing something a little different. Some background:
Books
This is my summer of reading bestsellers. Last week, I ditched the bestseller Atmosphere only about fifty pages in. This week I’m a half a hair away from ditching the latest EmHen. (See below.) The fact that both of these books have failed to engage me and I see writing that any book coach worth her ink would correct leads me to believe that a bestselling book is more about luck and persistence and branding than anything else.
Great, Big, Beautiful Life by Emily Henry. Amazon. Bookshop. After I closed the above novel, likely never to open it again, I turned to EmHen. I got this book before my trip to England, but it was too heavy to take. And now I’m glad because so far I like it. I’m often up and down with EmHen, so we shall see. Update: Oh gawd, I hate to say this, but EmHen, I’m bored.
Greenteeth, by Molly O’Neill. Amazon Bookshop. Yes, I confess, I started reading a new novel. My bad. This is a cozy fantasy with the main character a lake monster named Jenny Greenwater. It’s delightful. I’m not sure how I heard about it, but I’m glad I did.
Other places to connect with me:
My website (badly in need of an upgrade so maybe best to ignore it)
Our Let’s Go Write workshop website
My original blog (now for archive purposes only, no longer updated, but damn there are a lot of articles on it).
And here in Portland, it is v, v, wet. And cold, so cold I have a heater on at my feet. (And Chip the pug sleeping by it.)
This is a quote from Bob Goff. (No clue who he is.) I’ve saved it in my Google Keep and to my endless amusement auto correct wrote like this: “Extra vagrant love always finds a way to multiple itself.” Maybe I’ll be extra vagrant this summer, too.
Read, enjoyed, and shared on social media...as usual. ;-) Yeah, I agree: Life is waaaaaaay too short to be worrying about things that don't need worrying about. I worry about things like the emotional and physical wellbeing of my family and friends...and even a bit for the world. But that's about it. So much of everything is out of my control. Haters are gonna hate and judge. They can do their thing, and I'll do my thing, which is pretty much what I want...which is to leave a positive mark on this rock before I stop rotating around the sun with it. Happy writing! Oh, I like the Open Office Hours idea. I'll try and pop in some Friday and say hello. ;-)
Yessssssssssss! Thank you. xoxo